HIV and Aids

In the 20 years since HIV, or human immunodeficiency virus, was discovered, more than 60 million people have been infected. At first thought of as a 'gay' disease, HIV is no respecter of age or sex and is the most devastating disease the human race has faced. It's the virus that eventually causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome or Aids - a disease that attacks the immune system and leaves the body vulnerable to serious illnesses.

HIV is different from other viruses because antibodies produced by the immune system cannot kill HIV. Once a person is infected, HIV remains in the blood forever. Since 1992 about half the people with HIV have developed Aids within 10 years of initial infection.

The time between HIV infection and the development of Aids varies greatly - it depends on many factors, including a person's general health and his or her health-related behaviour. With improved treatment, researchers anticipate that the time it takes to develop full-blown Aids will extend further.

Who is affected?
In the UK, over 31,000 people including 500 children had either Aids or HIV at the beginning of 2,000 and 450 people died of Aids in the same year. For the past decade, HIV infections among UK women have increased dramatically, as have other - curable - sexually transmitted infections. In 1992, women made up 12 per cent of people living with Aids. By 1998, the proportion had grown to 35 per cent. Today, around 9,000 women in the UK are living with HIV infection, including those with Aids.

Worldwide, about 14 million women of childbearing age are infected with HIV, and more than 90 per cent of these are as a result of heterosexual transmission.

Thanks to powerful new antiretroviral drugs, the number of AIDS cases in both men and women in the UK has declined steadily. Recently, the decline in Aids has levelled off, indicating that much of the benefit of new drugs has been realised. But at the same time, complacency toward safe sex from over-optimism about HIV treatment has worried health officials. New studies have identified disturbing increases in HIV infection among young gay men and high-risk adolescents. This letting down of the prevention guard has already led to an upswing in HIV cases in the year 2000.